


gentle hands and scented oil

by ConvenientAlias



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, Shaving, that fine line between antagonism and lust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:21:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23811484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: During the time that Thorin is a captive in Mirkwood, Legolas shaves his beard.
Relationships: Legolas Greenleaf/Thorin Oakenshield
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35
Collections: What Fen Do (Instead of Going Outside), When Death Loves Flamingos





	gentle hands and scented oil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wednesday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wednesday/gifts).



It was offensive enough that Thranduil was insisting that the dwarves he had taken prisoner shave their beards for the sake of hygiene—and clearly meant to be so, given that he was not insisting they shave their hair, and beards were one source of pride that dwarves had that were never shared by elves. Most of the dwarves were pitching a fit about this already, though Thorin had noted Fili and Kili didn’t seem to mind much, as they generally kept their beards short anyways. What was a mild insult became a complete outrage, however, when Thranduil also insisted that the dwarves could not actually shave their own beards, given that they could not be allowed weapons, including razors, and therefore, others would have to shave their beards for them.

_That_ was clearly just an excuse for humiliation.

“I assure you,” Legolas said to Thorin, as he dipped a towel into the small basin he had brought with him, “it is no such thing. And have a care how you speak about my father, dwarf.”

Thorin snorted. “How you could see it as anything else is a mystery. Of course, you must share his amusement at this diversion. How is it, then, to see your enemy bound and helpless before you, while you wield the knife?”

For Thorin’s hands had been bound, apparently so he wouldn’t grab the razor and slit Legolas’s throat. Some of the dwarves had argued this was ridiculous—they were hardly so savage as to do such a thing—but Thorin actually disagreed. At this point, given the opportunity, he would have ripped an elf’s throat out with teeth given half a chance; the tying of his hands was, if anything, the most dignified part of this affair, as it at least acknowledged he was a dangerous warrior.

“You might consider I’m doing you a favor,” Legolas retorted. “Your travels have left you unkempt and dirty; it can’t be comfortable. This is a service we are doing for you.”

“So we won’t mar the dignity of your halls, I know. You could as easily just let us leave.”

This worn-out argument, Legolas did not pursue. Instead, he pressed the warm, wet towel to Thorin’s face. It was a pleasant, homey feeling. Even when he spread oil on Thorin’s chin and neck, his hands felt rather nice, neither light enough to be ticklish nor hard enough to cause discomfort. The oil, though, smelled of Mirkwood—of ancient trees and decadent honey—and Thorin didn’t quite like that. His own shaving soap came in bars, and had not much scent to it except a little waxiness. It was probably cheaper but, he thought, probably superior too. This oil couldn’t be used for shaving on a regular basis, after all, given that elves didn’t grow beards.

This thought unsettled him. “How do you know how to shave people, anyways? An elf can hardly be trusted to do it right.”

“It’s true I do not have much experience,” said Legolas, “but it’s come up on occasion. We do have visitors at times, like yourself. And I have gone travelling, though not as far as many of my kin.”

This answer did not assuage Thorin’s fears entirely, but before he could protest further, Legolas’s hand was on his jaw, and the other hand was holding the razor, and he felt that to continue speaking would make it look as if he were afraid of getting cut—and it also might result in his actually getting cut, if he moved under the blade. Neither of these outcomes being desirable, he stoically submitted to whatever torture might follow.

Legolas’s technique was a little rusty, maybe. He did move the blade slowly and carefully, a maddening pace, far more slowly than Thorin ever would. Thorin’s shaving, when he did it (rather than simply trimming edges) was quite efficient. Still, he wasn’t bad. He started on the upper jaw and worked down, going with the grain. Hair fell onto Thorin’s clothes, and Legolas occasionally paused to brush it off. He hadn’t considered a cloth for Thorin’s neck among his preparations, apparently. Still a lack of experience here.

On the second round of shaving, going across cheek and chin rather than down, Legolas’s hand did quaver. It might have been Thorin’s fault, an itch in his nose, but neither of them mentioned that when the blade slipped slightly, drawing a dot of blood on Thorin’s cheek.

Thorin cursed.

Legolas drew back his hand and actually apologized. “My hand slipped; it was not on purpose. I would not injure someone in the process of assisting them, or ever hurt someone whose hands were tied.” He dabbed at the blood with a towel. “I could get some sort of bandage, if you would prefer.”

“No need,” Thorin said. “Elves like you are weak at the sight of any blood on the face, I see. It must be your vanity.” That and the fact that they never shaved. Thorin found it amusing.

Legolas stiffened like a cat stroked the wrong way. “Hardly. I was only being courteous.”

“Fuck your courtesy. Finish the job. My beard’s still matted in oil, and I hate the scent of it. You’re intent on making me look like an elf, so go on at it.” Thorin jerked his head impatiently. “Go on.”

Legolas frowned, but he said no more, and did finish the second round of shaving. He then added more oil and did a third and final round, shaving against the grain, getting every last hair down to the skin. This accomplished, he wiped Thorin’s face off with the towel and offered some more ointment of a different kind.

“It will still stink,” Thorin said. “No, thank you.”

Bilbo remarked that evening, when he visited secretly, on how the various dwarves looked with their new cuts. Thorin, he said, had probably come out the best except for Kili, who had had barely any hair to begin with. Some of the others had come off badly, with hair left behind or with a lot more cuts. “Elves must not know how to shave very well.”

“They’re awful,” Thorin agreed. “The whole thing is an outrage. Thranduil simply means to mock us in any way he can.”

“It is odd to see a dwarf without a beard,” Bilbo said. “But at least yours came out dignified. I hadn’t pictured you without a beard before, but it’s not all that bad.”

Not all that bad was not the same as good. Still, when a few days passed and Thranduil insisted on their all being shaved again, Thorin complained when an elf was sent to him who wasn’t Legolas. “It’s beneath my dignity to bear my neck to one of lower rank. I am a king.”

“A king of nowhere,” the elf sent retorted. But he kicked up enough of a fuss that they sent Legolas in the end—Legolas, who clearly did not know quite what to make of it.

“I like making you my servant,” Thorin told him blandly. “The job suits you well.”

“You may gloat as you wish,” Legolas responded. “You remain a prisoner.”

But maybe he would have considered it beneath his pride to storm away or refuse. This sort of confrontation was a battle like any other. He did the job and did it well—that time, and the time after. As for Thorin, he did consider it a little amusing to see a prince at such work. If he also found it relaxing to feel those hands on his face, he certainly never expressed such a feeling.

When the party escaped Mirkwood, he let his beard grow out longer than he had been allowing it in the past. He found he had developed a distaste for the smell of the sort of shaving soap he could get on the road or at Laketown, and so he simply kept his beard neatly trimmed, which was more respectable for a dwarf anyways.


End file.
